What is a smart allec?

Question

I understand what it means,i don't understand the allec part,or however allic is spelled?Just like when someone says"im sick and tired",i get tired of things to,but not sick.If a person gets sick evereytime he or she is tired of something,i think there may be something wrong with that individual.

Answer 1

I believe it is "Alec." Sick and tired means that you are NOT literally ill, just sick (or tired) of the situation.

Here is the info that you might be interested in as far as Smart Alec:
For many years, Smart Alec or Smart Aleck was thought to be no more than a generic character, first cousin to Clever Dick. The problem with seeking his original is the obvious one that, with so many possible candidates, only a stroke of luck might lead a researcher to the right Alec. A plausible candidate has been put forward by Professor Gerald Cohen (for the full story, see G L Cohen, Studies in Slang, Part 1, 1985). He argues that the original was Alex Hoag, a celebrated and clever thief in New York in the 1840s.

Hoag worked with his prostitute wife Melinda and an accomplice called French Jack to fleece unwary visitors to the city who were looking for a little fun. The key to his activities was that they did so in close association with two police officers, who shared the loot and provided protection. Most was done by what was in effect pickpocketing, with Melinda taking the victim’s pocketbook while they were otherwise engaged and surreptitiously handing it to Hoag or French Jack as they walked by. So far, so commonplace. However, his downfall came because he got into financial difficulties and tried to cheat his police protectors out of their share of the loot. One way was that Hoag lay behind a wall in a churchyard and had Melinda drop the goods over the wall to him so that the constables couldn’t see the exchange.

Another of the standard frauds, practised by many, was called the panel game. George Wilkes, the assistant editor of the Subterranean, met Hoag while Wilkes was falsely imprisoned in the infamous New York prison called The Tombs. Wilkes described the trick in a diary of 1844, The Mysteries of the Tombs: “Melinda would make her victim lay his clothes, as he took them off, upon a chair at the head of the bed near the secret panel, and then take him to her arms and closely draw the curtains of the bed. As soon as everything was right and the dupe not likely to heed outside noises, the traitress would give a cough, and the faithful Aleck would slily enter, rifle the pockets of every farthing or valuable thing, and finally disappear as mysteriously as he entered.” The victim was then persuaded to leave in a hurry through a window by Alec banging on the door, pretending to be an aggrieved husband who has suddenly returned from a trip away.

Hoag used this trick to avoid paying off his police protectors, so that when he was caught, the police were in no mood to aid him. He was sentenced to jail, but escaped through the help of his brother, only to be recaptured following extensive police searches (by one of those odd coincidences, having been recognised by Wilkes).

Professor Cohen suggests that Alex Hoag was given the sobriquet of smart Alec by the police for being a resourceful thief who outsmarted himself by trying to avoid paying graft. It’s impossible to be certain this is the true story, since the expression doesn’t appear in print until 1865, but it does seem extremely plausible.

Answer 2

Sick and Tired.... here is an example, If you eat too much food, it will make you sick. If you drink too much alchol, it might make you sick. So, yea... if people are sick of something, its because they are getting way to much of it. Alec is how it is spelled....and it's slang. It simply means a thoughtless person. It originated in Australia.

Answer 3

I have the perfect place for you to find out what a smart allec looks like.
Go to your bathroom and look in the mirror.
That's what one looks like.